Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, covering the real inside story in Washington. In tonight’s edition, Republican mega donors tell me that Ron DeSantis may have just nuked his remaining credibility by signing his six week abortion ban, but he doesn’t seem to care what they think.

But first…

• Gerontocracy Notes: Senator Ben Cardin, who raised a mere $15,000 last quarter, has signaled privately that he won’t run for re-election in Maryland when his term ends in two years. In any other industry, it would not be surprising to discover that a 79-year-old might be pondering retirement. But that’s hardly the case in the Senate, where the 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein still commands sway. Meanwhile, Cardin’s potential exit could initiate a significant intra-party squabble: Angela Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George’s County, and David Trone, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, are apparently already eyeing the seat. Rep. Jamie Raskin could essentially rapture into the job if he wanted to campaign for it while managing his health issues. And even though it’s a safe seat for Democrats, there’s always an outside chance of a challenge from former Republican governor Larry Hogan, who has always polled well with Democratic voters in the state. (“[Cardin] has not made announcements, he’s got $1 million in the bank, so people shouldn’t read into financial statements,” said his spokesperson, Sue Walitsky.)

• More Late Entry ’24 Porn: I’ve been writing for weeks about a growing fantasy that’s taking hold among centrist Republicans with presidential aspirations: the fanciful notion that a DeSantis or Trump self-combustion (or mutually assisted destruction) might create a third lane for a more sane option later this summer, or even in the fall. Chris Sununu, Rick Scott, and Chris Christie all seem to be secretly and not-so-secretly contemplating the possibility. Ditto Glenn Youngkin, who seems to have planted a story in the Times suggesting what I’ve been reporting for weeks: He wants to win the Virginia state legislature in the fall, effectively flipping the state red, and then use the momentum to jump into the presidential race. Even if he misses a debate or two, Youngkin can use his own personal fortune to play catch-up.

• One More Note on Youngkin: Not everyone is sold on this wisdom. For one, Keith Nahigian, a Trump transition official and former Dubya-Dole-McCain-Bachmann aide, questions the legitimacy of late entry. Last week, after the R.N.C. announced that its first debate will be held in Milwaukee, in August, he texted me to say that this made-for-TV event was a demarcation point. “Either they get in before and participate, or immediately after, to have enough time to raise money for a strong fourth quarter,” Nahigian noted. “In other words, roughly the first two weeks [of August] is looking like the end of the window to enter and be viable.”

  But what about the parental rights-flogging, private equity grinfucker Youngkin? Surely he can pull it off, I wondered aloud. “With no name I.D. nationally and without an early home state advantage, like Sununu, in my opinion it would be too late to build momentum and get on the ballot in many big states,” Nahigian said. “This announcement could perhaps influence their strategies. I’m guessing there will be a debate every month after that.”

  While I had Nahigian, I had to ask him why DeSantis still hadn’t assembled a surrogate army to defend against attacks from Trump, a weakness I described last week. “It’s rare for first-time candidates to win,” explained Nahigian, whose communications shop, Big Whig Media, has its own network-ready TV studio on the ground floor of the historic Willard Hotel. “They normally try to use existing staff structures and are generally not familiar with enough subjects ranging from local to foreign. Most of the people running for the first time this cycle will be much better when it’s an open seat in five years. Campaign experience matters.” He went on: “There are limits to governor’s office communications. It’s hard to organize and coordinate without a campaign. Those appearances would need to be pitched by someone. Who would they say they work for? The Governor’s office, the re-election campaign? He should have an exploratory committee, like [Tim] Scott.”

  As for whether he’ll join a presidential campaign, Nahigian offered a bit of pithy advice for his peers: “Campaigns are first-in, first-out. Better to join later.”

Some donors have been delusional, telling themselves that DeSantis was simply forced to sign the bill to placate the rabid Florida legislature, which was leveraging their power over his ability to stay in the statehouse while running for federal office, like they did previously for Senators Rick Scott and Charlie Crist. But I’ve checked in with multiple leaders in the state legislature at the highest level, and that notion is a farce. DeSantis knows it’s bad general election politics to turn his campaign into another referendum on Roe v. Wade, these people say, but he also sees it as the only way to win the primary election against Trump.

And even though he declined to sign onto a federal six-week ban bill when he was in Congress, in 2017 and 2018, now people around DeSantis say he’s a true pro-lifer. Those people also said he was growing frustrated hearing Kristi Noem and others insinuate that Florida, with its 15-week ban, was becoming an abortion sanctuary in the south. (It also allegedly bothered DeSantis that there was a 30 percent uptick in abortions in Florida after Dobbs.) In short, he did this because he wanted to, though he seemed to acknowledge the terrible optics by signing the bill without media present at 11 p.m. on Thursday night, unlike exactly one year ago, when he signed the 15-week ban before the press at a church with a banner stating “Florida Is Pro Life.”

“They don’t care that some donor is upset with us,” said a Florida operative. “They’re literally like, fuck it, there’s a hundred billionaire donors out there and we’re the only person with billionaire donors.” After all, Las Vegas Budget Suites kingpin Robert Bigelow, a man who believes that there are aliens on earth, wrote a $10 million check to DeSantis in July. And there’s plenty more where that came from. So while Trump is scrounging for big dollar donors, showing up at John Paulson’s housewarming party, it’s possible that DeSantis just doesn’t care about losing the George W. Bush moderate billionaire class, who will inevitably come around if he wins the nomination, or when it becomes clear that Trump is the only alternative.

But elections aren’t decided by just Georgia and Ohio; they’re generally decided by college-educated swing-voting women in the suburbs. And both of those bills were largely symbolic at the time they were passed, when Roe was still the law of the land. Since then, Republicans can no longer grandstand on abortion issues with the Supreme Court providing a guardrail. DeSantis, one of the first governors to sign new abortion restrictions post-Roe, will also be among the first to test the public backlash.

Some Florida legislators I spoke to are genuinely fearful that this is not just bad politics for DeSantis in a general election, where swing voters see six weeks as too extreme, but also in Florida, a state that only recently obtained its solidly Republican status. “We’re going off a cliff, we’re putting ourselves in jeopardy in future races,” one Florida G.O.P. legislator told me. “I think it’s going to be hard for us to win in 2024. We won the state by 20 percent, so it does look like we’re all-powerful, but in the previous three cycles Donald Trump only won [Florida] by single digits.”

But DeSantis has largely insulated himself from outside voices and advice, relying on a small, close-knit inner circle that includes James Uthmeier, his staunchly pro-life chief of staff. “He believes life begins at the moment you kiss a girl,” the Florida operative joked of Uthmeier. In fact, it was DeSantis himself who pushed for six weeks, I’m reliably told, and would not settle for anything later. “The idea that he’s embarrassed by the bill is not true, he would go further,” the operative said of DeSantis.

In the meantime, DeSantis needs to do more than simply survive the constant drumbeat of attacks from Trump before he announces that he’s running. He also has to keep the Florida statehouse in line so that they will quickly rewrite the “Resign to Run” law when he’s ready to announce his candidacy. (DeSantis apparently isn’t so confident in his chances that he’s ready to give up his current job to run for president.) The first draft of the bill that has been circulating around the state house says it would take effect on July 1—just in time for a much-rumored, over-the-top patriotic July 4 announcement event.

I’ve heard a few informed theories as to why DeSantis is pushing off amending this bill, and instead leaving this obvious obstacle to deal with at a later date. For one thing, he essentially controls the statehouse, which is heavily Republican, and has demonstrated his grip on his party through the governor’s line item veto power of the budget. Ideally, they put the bill on the floor the way he wants it and pass it within 24 hours, at the end of the legislative session in May, which limits the news cycle window and leaves fewer opportunities for Trump forces to intervene. Indeed, there’s a fear that if it sits in a committee for too long, or even on the floor, a powerful Tallahassee insider like Susie Wiles, the ex-DeSantis aide who is now Trump’s de facto campaign manager, could exert pressure on legislators to perhaps hold up the bill. Perhaps she can convince them that by allowing DeSantis to run, they are making an enemy of Trump.

In the meantime, DeSantis has a fantastic distraction in his political and legal battle with Disney. The Walt Disney Company, of course, is also Florida’s biggest employer—not that it stopped DeSantis, just today, from threatening to build a state prison near the park. “Build a fucking state prison next to Disney World? Incredible. I think his blood sugar is low or something,” one former DeSantis aide texted me, suggesting this might be a side effect of his new low carb diet—or, even worse, Ozempic.